A/52/PV.39 General Assembly

I wish to thank the current President of the Security Council, the Permanent Representative of Chile, for having presented this year’s report (A/52/2) on the Council’s activity with his usual eloquence and brilliance. The improvements that have been introduced into the annual reports in recent years deserve to be acknowledged as a positive development from the point of view of the enhancement of transparency and accountability in the Council’s work, which has come to represent a universally shared objective. Indeed, with the intensification of the Council’s work during the present decade, such improvements in reporting have become not only desirable, but indispensable. They should be seen as part of an ongoing process which should, hopefully, dovetail with the results of the discussions on the so-called cluster II issues being dealt with in the Open- ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters Related to the Security Council. We would also like to express our appreciation for the efforts of individual delegations in keeping States members that are not in the Council as well briefed as possible on what goes on during the informal consultations. We wish to thank in particular all those former Council Presidents who have taken up the responsibility of circulating a summary of the activity during their presidencies. The pioneer role of the Ambassador of Portugal in this respect deserves a special word of recognition. The period covered by the latest report has been one of mixed results in terms of the Council’s capacity to effectively deal with the different sources of instability around the world. In certain regions the Council seems to have been able to assist in containing violence, and even in reversing it. Central America is a case in point. With the successful conclusion of the military observer Mission in Guatemala, the definitive ceasefire between the Government and the URNG has established the necessary conditions for the promotion of peace and development in a subregion of the Americas which has been particularly vulnerable to pernicious blends of internal strife and external interference. We are pleased to note that the entire isthmus today is making important strides in its struggle for the creation of better living conditions for its inhabitants, and that integration on the basis of shared values is progressing. Unfortunately, the same degree of confidence can still not be expressed with regard to the situation in Haiti. The United Nations presence in Haiti has helped to improve the security situation in the country and contributed to the training of a national police force. But in the absence of clearer signs of economic rehabilitation and reconstruction — for which the decided support of the international community is essential — the Security We look forward to the elimination of the last item on the Council’s agenda dealing with a situation in the Americas, as a reflection of the democratic renaissance in our part of the world. It is worth mentioning in this regard that with the recent entry into force of the Protocol of Washington to the Charter of the Organization of American States, the hemisphere will have at its disposal a strong instrument for dealing with threats to democratically elected Governments. An inordinate amount of the Council’s attention has been focused on Africa in the past year. The recent ministerial meeting of the Council, which took place under the presidency of the United States, constituted a timely and useful exercise in assessing present trends in a continent which is undergoing momentous transformations. The summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity earlier this year was hailed by many as an event which signalled a new era of growing cooperation among a generation of leaders determined to face up to the many challenges confronting them. The Security Council must learn how to tap the new political resources that have emerged in the wake of the dismantling of apartheid in Africa and must work closely with those leaders who have committed themselves to peace and democracy. Needless to say, this comparatively favourable political climate could be short-lived if the international community were to dedicate exclusive attention to security matters and show indifference to the continent’s many difficulties in the social and economic realm. A number of positive developments in some parts of Africa coexist with others that still give cause for concern. In Liberia, a successful electoral process has allowed the termination of the mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia, and the prospects for reconciliation are the best in years. In Western Sahara, progress is being made towards the fulfilment of the conditions for the holding of a referendum, with an active role being played by the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General, Mr. James Baker. Angola remains a source of considerable concern for my Government. The imposition of additional sanctions on Having touched on the subject of action under Chapter VII, I would like to note that we have been following with concern the tendency to place internal situations that do not have an obvious impact on regional or international security into that framework. Not long ago, it was said that the international press was responsible for placing items on the Council’s agenda, and certain representatives commented, not entirely in jest, that the Cable News Network (CNN) had become the sixteenth member of the Security Council. More recently, however, we have come to witness a different phenomenon, with situations that have never been on the front page of major newspapers being placed in the context of the framework reserved by the Charter for the most serious threats to international peace and security. We would have preferred, for example, that the regional action which has been authorized by the Council to improve security conditions in the Central African Republic had been placed in the context of the pacific settlement of disputes. Action under Chapter VII, whether of a non-military nature such as sanctions or involving the use of force, must remain an option of last resort, to be contemplated only when all efforts to salvage peace through diplomacy and peacekeeping carried out with the consent of the parties have clearly failed. The international community should resist lowering the threshold for invoking Chapter VII and prevent careless resort to coercive measures from endangering the Council’s credibility. The extremely violent conflicts that erupted in the former Yugoslavia at the beginning of this decade are still producing repercussions in the newly independent republics of the Balkans. There are lessons to be learned from the Council’s initial lack of a coherent plan for dealing with the Balkan tragedy, and the implementation of the Dayton peace plan has yet to establish itself as the irreversible blueprint for reconciliation in Bosnia. The Security Council retains a fundamental role in keeping the situation in the Balkans under close scrutiny in the Brazil will be returning to the Security Council next January for its eighth two-year period as a non-permanent member. We wish to take this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to discharge this responsibility in full compliance with our traditional adherence to the purposes and principles of the Charter, and as a nation which has lived in peace with all of its 10 neighbours for more than 120 years. We also wish to express our intention to do our utmost to live up to the trust the General Assembly has once again placed in us by remaining in close contact with non-members, individually and in groups, and by building upon the work of the many who have been trying to enhance the Council’s transparency and accountability in recent years. We will devote particular attention to devising appropriate channels for close and continuous communication with our Latin American and Caribbean friends in order to adequately reflect their concerns, to the extent possible, and to keep them apprised of the Council’s decision-making process. As a country with a solid record of consensus building, we look forward to collaborating with other Council members in translating the expectations raised by the end of the cold war into a more peaceful and cooperative international environment for all. Let me conclude with some brief observations on the important subject of Security Council expansion. After four years of intensive discussion in the Open-ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters Related to the Security Council, the process of Security Council reform has gained momentum in the past year through transparent deliberations that benefitted greatly from firm leadership. The issues are now well known. The creation of artificial procedural obstacles to Security Council reform through delaying tactics and surprise manoeuvres is not constructive. That is a mistaken path that does not lead to the more representative and legitimate Security Council that the great majority of the United Nations membership, in the developing world in particular, desires.

We have studied the report of the Security Council to the General Assembly with great attention, and we would like to thank all the members of the Council for their determined effort to foster peace and security around the world. The report underscores the remarkable progress that has been achieved by the international community in bringing peace and stability to several regions of the world. Everything points to a promising future in Haiti because of the determination of the international community to consolidate democratic rule in that Caribbean nation. The recent political wrangles should not be allowed to disturb the new-found peace in Haiti. In the final analysis, however, it is the people of Haiti themselves who must strive tirelessly to deepen the roots of their hard-earned democracy through national reconciliation and the denunciation of a culture of impunity. Earlier this year, when fighting flared up in Albania, the Security Council moved quickly and in a timely manner to put out the flames of war that could have engulfed the whole region. It adopted resolution 1101 (1997), which authorized the intervention of a multinational protection force in Albania. We wish such expeditious action could become the hallmark of the Council in all — I repeat, all — conflict situations. Africa has clearly been less fortunate in receiving equally vigorous commitments to the resolution of its conflicts than other parts of the world. During the two years that my country served in the Security Council, from 1995 to 1996, it was evident that lack of a resolute response by the Council to international conflict situations could have long-term disastrous consequences. This was clearly demonstrated in Central Africa, where the conflict which erupted in Rwanda in 1994 was allowed to smoulder unchecked until it degenerated into a genocidal conflagration. Just recently the Council watched with shocking indifference as the people of Congo (Brazzaville) were plunged into a bloodbath. The insistence by the Council that the Congolese militias should declare and observe a ceasefire before the United Nations could deploy peacekeeping forces at the airport in Brazzaville was, in our view, bereft of a sense of responsibility by an organ of this Organization whose responsibility it is to maintain peace and security in the world, Africa included. The Security Council should apply uniform criteria to all conflict situations around the world. Merely appealing to the conflicting parties to exercise restraint and resolve their differences peacefully, as has been the case with the recent conflicts in Central Africa, is obviously not enough. This approach has not worked. The time has come to address the problems of the subregion squarely and concretely, including ending the conflicts themselves, the restoration of democratic rule, respect for international humanitarian law and protection of human rights. The Security Council cannot, unfortunately, afford to remain indifferent to situations in which democratically elected Governments are overthrown with reckless impunity and in situations in which there is not one iota of respect for the sanctity of human life. When the General Assembly considered the report of the Security Council last year, my delegation was among those which were not happy with the descriptive nature of the report. It is unfortunate that the report is still being presented in the same fashion this year. As it is, the report does not give the reader a clear picture of the activities of the Council in the past year. We believe that there are ways in which the operations of the Council could become more open and transparent, without compromising the effectiveness of the Council. A more succinct report could be one of the ways. In the circumstances, it is evident that

I have listened with great interest to earlier statements under this agenda item, and I must say that in many of them I find a strong resonance with the views of the Australian delegation. I refer in particular to those views relating to the importance of greater openness and transparency in the work of the Security Council. I would like in particular to record Australia’s appreciation for the efforts of the Republic of Korea and other Security Council members that have made a special effort to respond to the needs of the broader membership. I was particularly struck by Ambassador Park Soo Gil’s reference to the “loungers” — that is, the people who have to mill around outside the room hoping for scraps to fall from the lips of those who have left the deliberations. I would like to make just two key points this afternoon. First of all, we note and we substantially agree with the concerns many have raised with regard to the usefulness of the annual report. Now, this is a very important vehicle for providing information that non- members have every right, I think, to expect. Therefore, we welcome the changes that have been foreshadowed for next year’s report, as outlined in the note of the President of the Council on 12 June 1997. We are also particularly pleased by the monthly assessments, an innovation introduced by the Portuguese President of the Council, which we applaud. They will now be made an addendum to the annual report. The new monthly assessments began in July, are a work in development, and they provide useful background information on the development of issues that are debated in the Council. These monthly assessments, I think, are a positive contribution to the principles of openness and transparency. The second point I would like to make is that Australia agrees with the importance other delegations have placed on the briefings given by the President of the Some delegations earlier and elsewhere have pointed to the fact that these briefings are a two-way process. To that extent, those delegations are quite right to point out that in some cases the briefings are not well attended. However, I think the representative of Malaysia made a very good point this morning, when he said that the lack of interest may, at least in part, be due to the fact that these briefings are either not sufficiently detailed or they do not go beyond what is given earlier in the day to the media. I think we can do a little better than that, and we would like to see something a little more structured and better targeted to the needs of the Members of this place, rather than to those of the media. There are, of course, I hasten to add, many exceptions, and Australia wishes to thank those members of the Security Council that have made a conscientious effort to keep the general membership informed and involved. We thank them very much for that. In summary, some progress is being made to pursue greater openness and transparency, and Australia and, I am sure, the rest of us very much welcome that. We hope that we can build on that and we look forward to a better process in the future.

My delegation welcomes this opportunity to consider the report of the Security Council to the General Assembly covering the period from 15 June 1996 to 14 June 1997. My delegation wishes to express its appreciation to Ambassador Somavía, President of the Council this month, for his lucid and concise introduction of the report. As a member of the Council, Japan is pleased to associate itself with his presentation. At the outset, I should like to emphasize that Japan attaches great importance to improving the working methods of the Security Council. In particular, my delegation has consistently supported strengthening the relations between the Security Council and the General Assembly and enhancing the transparency of the Security Since becoming a member of the Council in January, Japan has been participating actively in its intensive discussions on this issue. In June an agreement was reached to the effect that in future years the Council’s report to the General Assembly would be made in a new format. As Ambassador Somavía has explained in detail, the report would contain concrete reform measures, with brief assessments, by Permanent Representatives who have served as Presidents of the Security Council, attached as an addendum. Japan recognized that this agreement, which responded to the calls of many countries for improving the report of the Security Council, represented a significant step forward. The Security Council has decided once again to continue studying and reviewing this issue with a view to further improving its documents and procedures. For its part, Japan will continue to support that worthy endeavour. In closing, I should like to recall the main objective of reform, which is to strengthen the functions of the United Nations as a whole. An essential means of achieving that end is to render the activities of the Security Council more effective by enhancing its work methods — including its relations with the General Assembly — and by expanding and reforming it. I wish to assure you, Mr. President, that Japan is committed to the attainment of these goals so as to ensure that the Council has the capacity to discharge its responsibilities for the maintenance of world peace and security, as prescribed in the United Nations Charter.

The President of the Security Council, Ambassador Somavía, has already outlined the main elements in the present report of the Council and has pointed out relevant questions addressed during the period under consideration regarding the improvement of the methods of work of the Council. Portugal welcomes the decision taken by the Council as a result of which, starting next year, a new type of My delegation is pleased to have contributed to this outcome of the discussions entered into by Council members this year in the informal working group on documentation and procedural questions. We believe that this is not only a serious response from the Council to the specific measures requested by General Assembly resolution 51/193, but also a positive step towards enhancing the transparency of the Council. This is a dynamic evolutionary process, and more can certainly be done. For example, since last year the annual report has contained references to the activities of the sanctions committees. It seems reasonable, therefore, to expect the reports of these committees to be attached to the annual report of the Security Council. As Portugal has been a member of the Council since January, my delegation is now in a position to consider the practice of the Council from an inside perspective and has submitted to Council members a number of its own observations for discussion. One concerns the manner in which the decision-making process of the Council is presently developed in informal meetings, the so-called consultations of the whole. In our experience, the prevalence of informal consultations has not brought substantial gains in expediting the Council’s work or making it more efficient. Rather, it has made the Council less transparent and has widened the gap between the Council and the rest of the membership. Informal consultations can and should take place whenever necessary to assist members in the consideration of certain matters, as occurs in any other United Nations body. But they should not systematically replace regular formal sessions of the Council, at which members should state their views on the matters under consideration and hear other United Nations Members, if the Council so decides. On the other hand, according to the Charter and the existing provisional rules of procedure, the Council can always meet in private formal sessions whenever confidentiality is required. Clearly, in this matter, a balance must be found. In fact, the main distinctive element that distinguishes formal meetings from informal consultations of the whole Formal sessions, public or private, with written records, will improve transparency. According to the Charter, all United Nations Members are entitled to follow closely the Council’s activities. Not only should they be able to obtain information directly by attending regular formal sessions, but they should also have access to reliable written records, including those of sessions held in private, if their particular interest is recognized by the Council. In our view, the current practice by which non- members of the Council gather information at the end of consultations of the whole is most improper. Information can be easily manipulated or is one-sided. Unfortunately, a majority of United Nations Members choose this way of gathering information, instead of attending the presidency’s daily briefings, which should be truly informative. Another way to increase the contribution of the entire United Nations membership to the activities and decisions of the Council, as other delegations have stressed, would be to ensure active participation by troop- contributing countries in the decision-making phase of the Council’s deliberations regarding peacekeeping or peace- enforcement operations. We are not alone in our dissatisfaction with the manner in which meetings of troop-contributing countries are now conducted. One other related aspect, which my delegation has also brought to the attention of the Council and which is currently under discussion in the informal working group on documentation and procedural questions, concerns the use — or rather, the misuse — that has been made of the so-called Arria formula meetings. We realize that, somehow, inaccurate ideas have spread among the United Nations membership, even among Council members, on this extremely useful mechanism. The value of the Arria formula meetings lies precisely in the informal and flexible manner of Yet in the lists of Arria formula meetings, which we were able to trace back to 1993, when they started, we find at least 10 heads of state and government and over 15 ministers among them. That means that almost 60 per cent of all guests, so far, have been representatives of States or Governments. Did they all prefer the Arria formula, knowing that there would be no written records? Were they fully aware of the implications of that informal format? Why were they not accorded formal meetings of the Council, as provided for by Articles 31 and 32 of the Charter and rules 37 and 38 of the provisional rules of procedure? We will be pleased to share with interested delegations a paper with more detailed Portuguese views on the use and merits of the Arria formula, which we find to be a tool with extraordinary potential. Here, I would just like to stress that we believe that Arria-style meetings should be used whenever there is a need to preserve informality. They are informal by nature. We should not, therefore, attempt to create norms to regulate them. They have their own function within the informal activities of Security Council members. But, their use should not preclude the utilization of other formal mechanisms provided for by the Charter and the provisional rules of procedure. As a non-permanent member of the Security Council, Portugal shares with the majority of United Nations Members a particular concern with the transparency of the Council. Indeed, in this respect, our experience in the Security Council since last January has led us to conclude how crucial it is to promote a serious review of the working methods of the Council if we really wish to strengthen its transparency, credibility and efficiency. This is particularly decisive at a moment when the enlargement of the Security Council is very much on the agenda of the global reform of the United Nations. Let us not have any illusions: if its methods of work remain the same, the Council’s enlargement will not, by itself, bring about a more efficient, accountable and credible organ. The submission of an annual report by the Security Council has become a useful exercise which enables the membership of the United Nations to assess the work of the Council. In that connection, the present report speaks for itself in terms of the quantity of work covered during that period. The President of the Security Council, in his introduction this morning, informed us of the progress made so far in improving the content and value of the report, as well as the further steps that need to be taken to ensure that the reporting procedures of the Council meet the aspirations of all the Members of the United Nations, as expressed in General Assembly resolution 51/193 of 1996. Our contribution to this debate on the report and, therefore, on enhancing the transparency of the Council’s working methods will be limited to observing a number of specific issues. We believe that the results of the informal working group, when fully implemented, will be a first step towards making the current procedures more transparent and informative. The reports will also have, as an addendum, monthly assessments by Presidents of the Council. The decision to include the monthly assessments as an addendum to the Council’s report is a very useful undertaking which began in June this year. My delegation believes that an analytical addition to the report will provide critical insights into the issues, thereby enabling a better reading of the situations in question, as well as the actions that need to be taken. We strongly believe that these assessments will enable other Member States to gain access to current thinking and trends within the Council. My delegation agrees with the assessment of Ambassador Somavía that the briefing sessions of the presidency, open to all Members of the United Nations, are not always very well attended. In addition, inquiries on the issues before the Council are constrained by the tradition of confidentiality that surrounds informal consultations. Thus any reporting of what takes place in informal Council meetings may not be very useful to Member States. We therefore agree with the view that we The issuing of statements to the press by the President of the Security Council is another area we would briefly like to comment on. During Kenya’s presidency of the Security Council in February this year, we were made to understand that releasing the written statements to the press and Member States was equivalent to formalizing informality. That is, since the consultations were informal, anything written thereafter, even if it had been read to the press and represented as an accepted position of all Council members, was not appropriate because it assumed a formal appearance. In contrast, we believe that if a statement has been read to the press, it should be appropriate to provide it to Members of the United Nations present at the briefing, to whom we should be more responsive. The meetings of troop-contributing countries tend to be formal and, indeed, sometimes pro forma, with individual national problems having being resolved at the Secretariat level. There is a need to make them more dynamic, relevant, rewarding and effective for all concerned. We are also aware that many other proposals on the working procedures of the Council have been made at meetings of the Open-ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council, and we look forward to discussing them with other delegations. Allow me to discuss a disturbing trend we have observed with respect to agenda items on Africa, which currently make up 65 per cent of the work of the Security Council. Ten months of Kenya’s two-year tenure in the Security Council have gone by. The logic and relative predictability that governed international relations during the cold war have gone, leaving in their place an ensuing free-for-all that has had far-reaching results for international peace and security. In Africa, for example, we have seen democratically elected Governments, as well as dictatorships, deposed by military means. We have witnessed States invading other States with little or no condemnation from the international community and, in fact, in some cases, we have observed tacit support for such illegality. It has become clear that the manner in which the international community responds to events is extremely important to how such events develop. In the case of Sierra Leone, this coup was unanimously and unreservedly condemned by the international community. Consequently, it is expected that in six months, the legal regime will be Finally, Kenya will continue to participate actively in the Security Council’s working group on documentation and procedures, which we believe has enabled a healthy light of transparency to shine more in the Council. It is a good thing in itself to prepare quality reports, but it is even more important to make the Council not only more transparent, but more effective by making it a more proactive rather than a reactive body.

This debate on the report of the Security Council for the period 16 June 1996 to 15 June 1997 is welcome both as an exercise in transparency and as a reminder that the Security Council belongs to the United Nations membership as a whole. We thank the Permanent Representative of Chile, Ambassador Juan Somavía, for having introduced the report to the General Assembly. With respect to methods of work, my delegation greatly appreciates the real effort made by individual Council members to enhance transparency in Security Council operations. The daily briefings are useful, and we acknowledge the attention that Council Presidents accorded to the practice during the period covered by the report. The opening to non-members of the Council of meetings which are essentially informative in nature, including certain briefings by the Secretary-General or other United Nations representatives and meetings now held under the Arria formula, would be appreciated. My delegation is encouraged by the efforts of some Council members to obtain access to additional sources of Canada supports other mechanisms, such as the groups of friends of the Secretary-General which, especially in the case of Haiti, have allowed countries with a particular interest in a Security Council matter a measure of influence on the Council’s deliberations. We would, however, also welcome efforts which would allow Member States that are directly affected by Council action to be able to state their views directly to the entire Council before decisions are taken in closed consultations. This includes major troop contributors, who should have input into decisions that might affect the very lives of their nationals. Greater participation by non-members in these areas would, we believe, only strengthen the Council’s credibility and effectiveness. We heard with interest the statement this morning by the representative of Germany. We fully agree with him that transparency depends on those Member States serving on the Council. We do not believe that improvements in transparency and methods of work need to wait until Security Council reform is fully implemented. Indeed, contributing to this shared objective of achieving greater transparency in the Council’s method of work has been a principal objective for Canada in putting forward our candidature for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council for the period 1999-2000. With respect to the Council’s substantive agenda, the report before us speaks of the Security Council’s attempt to grapple with such difficult issues as demining in the context of peacekeeping operations, ensuring the security of United Nations and other personnel, and the protection of refugees and displaced persons. We applaud the Council’s efforts. Our candidature for the non-permanent Council seat is guided by a desire to contribute substantially to the Council’s efforts to achieve progress on these and related issues, which would include the impact on regional security of traffic in small arms. The report before us bears witness to the decrease in the amount of peacekeeping being done by the Security Council. Let us recall that, only two years ago, there were 80,000 peacekeepers at the service of the United Nations worldwide. By June 1996, this number had declined to 26,300. This number is now projected to decline further to 13,000 by the end of this year, and 3,000 of these will be civilian police. We are concerned that the unfortunate reality is that the number of conflicts in the world has in no way abated. We do not believe that, in response, the answer is always to deploy more peacekeepers. However, it is our fundamental belief that the United Nations must remain engaged in the business of peacekeeping. There has been an increased tendency for the Security Council to rely instead on multinational “coalitions of the willing” to carry out peacekeeping functions and mandates. While we acknowledge that in many situations such coalitions are the only viable mechanism to resolve a crisis, we would urge the Council to remain a key player; the deployment of multinational forces does not for a moment mean that the Council should wash its hands of the matter. As the world’s expert on peacekeeping, it continues to have an invaluable role to play. Canada welcomes the increased collaboration between the United Nations and regional and subregional bodies that is evident in this report. Such bodies are becoming effective instruments for the promotion of regional peace and security. For example, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its Committee of Five are to be commended for their success in security support for the ECOWAS peace plan in Sierra Leone. Canada supports greater collaboration with the Organization of African Unity in the development of its Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution. We look forward to continued cooperation with regional and subregional organizations in capacity- building for preventive diplomacy, so that crises can be resolved at an early stage and we can look forward to the day when peacekeeping is no longer required at all.

At the outset, I would like to thank Ambassador Juan Somavía of Chile for his careful introduction of the report of the Security Council to the General Assembly. We are all immersed in the discussion of structural aspects of the United Nations, but this should not delay work on the basis of the existing structures to improve the transparency of its main organs. In other words, the legitimate hopes for a more efficient and democratic Organization as a result of reform cannot stand in the way of the urgent need to improve the institutions that we now have. This conclusion seems to us particularly applicable to the work of the Security Council. I note that its report, contained in document A/52/2, includes certain improvements as compared to the report submitted in 1996. One is the inclusion in appendix X of a list of meetings of the Security Council and troop-contributing countries, chaired by the President of the Security Council. We are also pleased to see that this report, where it refers to the outcome of the working group on documentation and procedure, reproduces document S/1997/451, which enumerates the various elements the Council’s report should contain. We consider the decision to include in future reports the assessments of former Presidents of the Council to be an encouraging advance. We are especially grateful to those delegations that have already circulated such assessments for the months of their presidencies. Here, we refer, in particular, to Sweden and the United Kingdom. Such assessments are an important, if limited and provisional, step towards greater transparency, since they provide a written record of the statements of the President to the press with regard to certain items that are considered in informal consultations. Those delegations that have promoted the practice of presidential assessments, such as Chile, Costa Rica, and, in particular, Portugal, as well as Sweden, Japan, Egypt, Angola, Kenya, among others, deserve the gratitude of all Member States. Furthermore, when the report of the Security Council was presented by the Secretariat, the fact that it includes more information on the work done by the various sanctions committees was emphasized. This is a good thing. However, we do not see progress on the amount and substance of the information provided. Since such reports partly concern commercial activities, greater transparency would help avoid problems and unfortunate attempts to violate sanctions, attempts which sometimes occur precisely because of a lack of information. The practice followed by successive presidencies of the Council of briefing those delegations that are not members is by now well established, and is properly appreciated by most Member States. We regret the fact that at those briefings Member States are not given more information than that which appears in the press. A recent assessment by a former President of the Security Council points out that while contacts between the President and the press take place on a daily basis, contacts with countries that are not members of the Council are confined to the days when informal consultations are held. This analysis is obviously not very encouraging to Member States of the United Nations, and to some extent it explains why such briefings are so poorly attended. The importance of keeping the media informed on what takes place in the Security Council is indisputable. But at the same time it is hard to accept that our own capitals should receive through the press information which by rights should be obtained at first hand and in the Council Chamber itself. Furthermore, if public opinion and parliaments are kept at the margin of the most important aspect of the United Nations activity, peace and security, it will be increasingly difficult for such crucial sectors to accept the usefulness of this Organization at a time of crisis and scant resources in national budgets. The publication of this Repertoire is more than 10 years behind schedule, which creates difficulties for countries that become members of the Security Council, for the press and for parliamentarians, who cannot understand how such a shortcoming can be tolerated by a principle organ of the United Nations. Its actual practice must therefore be compiled objectively to ensure that all groups are familiar with it. We hope that the United Nations will quickly update that material, whose publication has suffered from budgetary restrictions that are difficult to reconcile with the importance we attach to the Security Council. There are many times when in the United Nations, and especially in the Council, countries are urged to respect the principles that inspire democratic legitimacy. The last such case was the case of Sierra Leone. Unfortunately, public opinion sees that the procedures followed by the Council do not appear to be in keeping with such principles. The lack of transparency is clear when decisions are adopted in meetings to which the other 170 Members of the United Nations do not have access. But what is even more difficult to explain to public opinion is that in such informal consultations high Secretariat officials render reports to which the other Members of the United Nations which contribute to the funding of the Organization have no access. This is a particularly harmful practice because it makes more impenetrable the wall of isolation not only between the Security Council and the other Members of the Organization, but also between them and important Secretariat officials. This is not merely a concern of the delegation of Argentina. In 1994 the Foreign Minister of France, a permanent member of the Security Council and a day-to- day protagonist in world affairs, urged the Council to have greater recourse to public debate in the adoption of its decisions. Similarly, in 1992 a distinguished African Ambassador, representative of the largest regional group in this Assembly, Mr. Mumbengegwi of Zimbabwe, stressed how important it was for any decision adopted by the Council to stand up to the scrutiny of Member States. The credibility of any organization is at stake whenever it is seen as applying double standards. Here, I would like to stress that when it comes to transparency and voting methods, Argentina has had the privilege of maintaining a close cooperation with the delegation of New Zealand, which has indicated to me that it associates itself with the points we are now making. For Member States, which have to fund this Organization, particularly in the context of the negotiation of a more burdensome scale of assessment, it should be understood that the reform process is a single entity. As regards the work of the Security Council, reform is necessary, and Member States have been calling for it for years. Those who, in an attempt to prevent war, designed a multilateral system that would do away with secrecy and non-transparent procedures in international relations are today deemed to be the fathers of collective solidarity. We urge those countries that have inherited the legacy of democracy and transparency to use their prestige and influence to make that legacy truly effective at a time when there is a wish to restructure the institutions of this Organization, without new exclusions and for the equal benefit of all 185 countries.

My delegation is pleased to take part in this debate on the report of the Security Council to the General Assembly on its work from 16 June 1996 to 15 June 1997. During the second half of the period under consideration, my delegation had the privilege of occupying one of the non-permanent seats reserved in the Security Council for the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States. Costa Rica endeavoured to be a worthy representative of its Group in that most important organ and to advance the basic values of its own foreign policy: the promotion of human rights, respect for international humanitarian law, respect for the principle of non- intervention, total compliance with the prohibition of the The Security Council deals with the most serious and sensitive situations that affect international relations and can threaten international peace and security. However, thanks to active cooperation between its members, it has proved possible to uphold these fundamental values in the spirit and in the practice of that important United Nations organ. Costa Rica remains fully committed to continue promoting these values in its future work within the Security Council. However, I cannot fail to mention the issue of transparency in the procedures of the Security Council and the format of its report. On transparency in procedures, I should note that there are three concerns that must be respected and considered. ‘ First, there is the perfectly legitimate concern of the membership of the United Nations that the activities of the Security Council be transparent. That concern arises from the fact that, under Article 24, paragraph 1, of the Charter, the Security Council is acting on behalf of the membership of the United Nations when it exercises its primary function of maintaining international peace and security. Accordingly, the activities of the Security Council must not and cannot be kept secret from the Members of the Organization. Secondly, as the membership of the Organization and the Security Council want its activities to be effective, on some occasions confidentiality and privacy are certainly required when the Council takes its decisions. Although this is a controversial point, to my delegation it is a valid one. Thirdly, the Security Council needs to get the maximum amount of information possible from Member States. This, along with the basic criterion of due process, explains the existence of Articles 31 and 32 of the Charter, which allow Member States of the Organization that are not members of the Security Council to participate, without vote, in the Council’s discussions. Accordingly, my delegation, together with other non-permanent members of the Security Council, has frequently supported the holding of more public debates. The concern for greater transparency will only be fully met when the Member States of the Organization can observe all the work of the Security Council. In this connection, it would be desirable — pursuant to Articles 31 and 32 of the Charter, as well as rules 37 and 38 of the Unfortunately, the current practice of the Security Council greatly limits the holding of public meetings. This trend must be reversed. There must be more public meetings. In particular, reports of the Secretary-General or his representatives must be presented and discussed at public meetings. In the view of Costa Rica, there is no reason for these discussions to take place during “informal consultations”. Moreover, it does not seem acceptable that the Secretary-General should regard certain information as confidential and that the majority of members of the Organization should not have access it. In this regard, it is desirable that all delegations should be informed of the written reports of the Secretary-General. Moreover, my delegation believes that the holding of more public meetings would, to a large extent, resolve the difficulties over the format of the Council’s report, because we would have full records of most of the discussions. On the other hand, my delegation cannot deny that the informal consultations of the Security Council play a very important role in those situations in which the sensitive nature of the issues requires private, confidential discussions, or in which the decision-making process is greatly facilitated by less formal discussions. For these reasons, my delegation is not at present in favour of eliminating such meetings or having records of them or detailed information about the discussions. However, we believe that such meetings should be the exception and no longer be the rule. My delegation cannot fail to voice its pleasure regarding the Security Council’s decision, reflected in the note of the President of the Council of 12 June 1997, to change the format of its report and to include assessments prepared by Presidents of the Council, under their own responsibility, of the work of the Council during the period in which they held the presidency. We trust that the positive effect of these changes will be seen in the report of the Council for the current period. However, we recognize that these decisions are just the first step towards greater transparency and effectiveness in the work of this most important body. Continued, united Lastly, on behalf of my delegation I would like to thank our friend, Ambassador Juan Somavía, Permanent Representative of Chile, for his introduction of the report of the Security Council, just as we thank him for his very able conduct of the discussions in the Council this month.

I would like to begin by thanking the President of the Security Council for his introduction of the report for the period from 16 June 1996 to 15 June 1997, contained in document A/52/2. My country welcomes the efforts made in the Security Council to introduce improvements into its reports. We note with interest the agreement reached in the Council to the effect that in the future its annual reports will be modified, taking into account the views that have been expressed regarding the current format, as can be seen in chapter 28 B of the report and in paragraph 2 of the note of the President of the Council, document S/1997/451 of 12 June 1997. That note also contains important details about the content of the report in its new format; it will contain information regarding the work of subsidiary organs, including the sanctions committees, as well as information regarding the documentation and working methods and procedures of the Council. Special mention should be made of paragraph 5 of the note, which says that there will also be attached, as an addendum to the report, brief assessments of the work of the Council, which representatives who have completed their functions as President of the Security Council may wish to prepare, following consultations with members of the Council, for the month during which they presided. It is regrettable that, in accordance with the agreement reached in the Council, these addenda would be the exclusive responsibility of the outgoing Presidents and would not represent the views of the Council. We await with keen interest the addendum to the report containing the Presidents’ assessments referred to in paragraph 5. While acknowledging that this is a positive development, we stress the need for the Council to pay due attention to all the aspects mentioned in General Assembly resolution 51/193, especially those contained in operative paragraph 4. We would like to encourage the Council to continue to improve its reporting system. We also hope that whenever necessary the Council will submit special reports, The submission of a more substantive report would facilitate its consideration by the Assembly, as recommended by the Open-ended High-level Working Group on the Strengthening of the United Nations System. On the basis of this evaluation, informal consultations will have to be held, following the debate in plenary, to consider the need for and content of the measures which the Assembly will have adopted on the basis of the discussion. As recommended by the Working Group on the Strengthening of the United Nations System, the consideration of the matter should not be deemed concluded. It should remain open so that, if necessary, new discussions can take place in the course of the year, taking into account, inter alia, the submission of new reports.

The Republic of Belarus attaches great importance to the work of the Security Council as the principal organ of the United Nations responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. Our delegation has listened carefully to the statements made by preceding speakers, which, we feel, contained interesting and constructive proposals on how to improve the work of the Security Council. We agree with most of these suggestions. I will therefore limit myself to making a few brief comments on the preparation and consideration of the reports of the Security Council. We note the positive changes that have occurred in the preparation of the Security Council’s report, which should lead to further improvements in the substantive part by enhancing its analytical nature. We also believe that it would be positive to attach an addendum to the report of the Security Council. This would contain brief assessments of the Council’s work by those representatives who have completed their terms in the presidency. Although these assessments would reflect the personal views of those representatives, this useful start would be a step towards making the Council’s report more analytical. We believe that the Security Council’s report could be improved by a more thorough preliminary I would express the hope that the comments made here will be taken into account in the preparation and discussion of the Security Council’s reports in the future and that they will contribute in general to improving its work.

Permit me to associate myself with representatives who have spoken before me in expressing appreciation to the President of the Security Council, Ambassador Somavía, the Permanent Representative of Chile, for presenting the report of the Security Council to the General Assembly. My delegation welcomes this opportunity to express its views on the work of the Security Council during the period covered by the report — 16 June 1996 to 15 June 1997. They can be divided into two parts: those relating to the substance and nature of the Council’s work and decisions, and those relating to its working and reporting methods and decision-making process. My delegation recognizes that some progress has been achieved in the latter to render it more transparent and democratic and more in tune with the fiduciary character of Security Council. As many speakers before me have pointed out, more needs to be done — a subject to which I will return. In our view, the decisions of the Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security — the subject of Part I of the present report — will gain further legitimacy, authority and credibility if they are fully In the current circumstances, when Members of the Organization can provide valuable input to the Council without the old constraints of the bipolar world of the cold-war era, the Security Council should be able to take advantage of the weight of the General Assembly to request recommendations, in accordance with Article 12 of the Charter, with regard to the dispute or situation with which the Council is seized. Along the same chain of thought, attempts should be made to see how Articles 10 and 11 could be interpreted alternatively in the light of current realities to give effect to the role of the General Assembly in the maintenance of international peace and security. The Islamic Republic of Iran has maintained that resort to Chapter VII should always be made with extreme caution. As the main body responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security, the Security Council should enhance its contacts in a sustained manner with conflicting parties through every possible means. The perception of a Security Council that energetically seeks peaceful solutions through diplomacy is by far stronger and more efficient than that which views the Security Council as a heavy-handed body that readily seeks coercive and interventionist measures to an international problem because it lacks vision, patience, evenhandedness or all of these. In cases of any foreign military involvement by a State or a group of States in another State that has been originated to implement a Security Council resolution adopted under Chapter VII, the Council must continue to be actively engaged and must assume full responsibility for the manner in which its decisions are implemented. The Security Council must avoid the newly preferred approach of delegating authority to structures outside of the United Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security. Such an approach, when used repeatedly, will erode the authority and credibility of the Council and of the Organization as a whole. Going back to the working and reporting methods of the Council, I must say that the current report to the General Assembly falls short of what is expected of the Council in accordance with Article 24 of the Charter. The report clearly fails to deliver what it promises in the introduction: to be a guide to the activities of the Security Council. How are the non-members of the Council to be guided by the report when it offers no analysis of the Many speakers before me have pointed out the shortcomings of the report, and we fully agree with them. Let me draw attention to one more that may be non- conventional. Part III of the report, which relates to the work of the Military Staff Committee, consists of only three full lines. In light of the need for transparency and effective communication between the Council and the General Assembly, I am not sure that the provision of some broad information on the topics of the 26 meetings the Military Staff Committee held would have undermined the integrity of the Committee’s work. In our view, the Security Council would enhance its credibility were it to be responsive and forthcoming to the views expressed by the general membership in terms of adopting further measures for the democratization and transparency of its working methods and communication with the General Assembly. The report of the Council needs to be improved to become more analytical, with assessment of past activities, particularly those relating to peacekeeping operations. The report also needs to contain information on informal consultations of the whole, where most important decisions are made. One way to do that is to annex an account of the welcome practice of briefing by the presidency of the Council for the non-members of the Security Council. Such an addition to the report would also serve as an inducement to accord some structure and more substance to the briefings. The same approach could be adopted for the briefings by the Chairmen of the subsidiary committees of the Security Council. Consideration should also be given to the possibility of members of the Security Council holding regular briefings for members of their respective geographical groups. The General Assembly should develop, in appropriate working groups and in the light of contemporary realities, a guideline to be recommended to the Security Council on the number of reports it should receive and on the meaning of “when necessary” in terms of special reports in the context of Article 24. The same ideals will require that more meetings of the Council be held in an official format. Meetings that have an informative character, such as briefings by the Secretary-General or other United Nations representatives, are a good start. The Security Council functions on behalf of the general membership of the United Nations, and as such it needs the full support of the General Assembly to effectively fulfil its mandate. The General Assembly looks forward, as manifested in the current consideration of the Council’s report, to a healthy dialogue and relations, as well as an effective and sustained means of communication with the Council. The Security Council should too.

May I take it that the Assembly takes note of the report (A/52/2) of the Security Council?

We have thus concluded this stage of our consideration of agenda item 11. Announcement by the President

I should like to make an announcement concerning the following activities. The 1997 United Nations Pledging Conference for Development Activities will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, 4 and 5 November, in the morning of both days. The announcement of voluntary contributions to the 1998 programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will take place on Friday, 7 November, in the morning. The Special International Meeting in Support of the United Nations Inter-Agency Programme of International Assistance to Areas Affected by the Chernobyl Disaster will be held on Tuesday, 25 November, in the morning. Members are requested to consult the Journal announcements for these activities for further details.